Visitors and new members welcome at any time.We supply all equipment. All you need is a pair of flat soled shoes to wear on court. The Croquet Courts are behind Avening Close, off Trendlewood Way, Nailsea, Bristol, BS48 4TB. In the interests of the safety of the users of the field, we ask you to restrict your speed to 10mph as you drive towards the Club entrance gate
Please note that this is not a postal address – contact the Secretary on merielf@btinternet.com if you need to send mail to us

SHORT CROQUET 5 MAY 2019

The Short Croquet Competition was held on a mainly sunny, although quite chilly, early May day. The lawns were full to capacity with 16 players who were divided into 4 blocks, each with a range of handicaps. Debutant John Hancock was in Block 1. He began by using his handicap advantage over David Hunt superbly well to win by a huge margin with half an hour left on the clock. Kathy Wallace, who was his next opponent, had observed this match and decided that the only way to beat John was to introduce surprise elements. She did this and won – also with half an hour to spare. David Hunt, John and Kathy each won two games but John and Kathy proceeded to the quarter finals by virtue of net points. In Block 2, everyone was pleased to see Jim Gregory back playing Association Croquet after a difficult winter, health-wise. In true Gregory fashion, he won all his games and booked a quarter final place, as did Erica Malaiperuman. Doreen Wallace was very unlucky to lose two of her games by 1 point on time. In the third block, Brian McCausland won all his matches and Terry Young won two, one of them in a very fast time. The final block contained Geoff Hughes who was at a big handicap disadvantage but did manage one win. Libby Howard-Blood won all her games and went into the quarter finals, as did Brian Roynon.

The semi-finals will take place in September. The day was enjoyed by all. Croquet brings together people of all abilities and ages and the handicap system creates meaningful games. To encourage speedy, positive play, the manager offered small prizes to the winners of the fastest games. These were won by John Hancock, Terry Young and Kathy Wallace.

Kathy’s Column Feb 2019

Welcome to the 2019 Season. You may have heard that I have agreed to take over the management of Club AC competitions and to organise the entries and Blocks etc for the Buchanan and Sergeant Cup GC competitions. Linda will continue to take the managerial decisions for these GC competitions and to organise the “on the day” GC competitions.

One change this year is that the level play GC competition which has always been played on a specific (half) day will now run through the season. For this reason, it is listed on the 2019 entry form with the other “through the season competitions”. The manager for this competition will be Ryan Cabble. Ryan hasn’t managed an event before but he is an experienced tournament player. Once the entries are in, they will be split between two classes, according to handicap. The class for lower handicaps will compete for the Marshall Midda Shield while the higher handicaps will compete for the Level Play GC Cup. The split will be made at a convenient handicap point, chosen to ensure two good competitions.

The other change for 2019 is the addition of an extra GC competition for players with handicaps of 7 or above – a Club C Class GC competition. This will take place on a specific day and the date will be announced with the other “on the day” dates.

Linda, Ryan and I will liaise when appropriate and we hope that things will run smoothly, much as usual.

I hope the weather will be kind to us and that we will be able to enjoy our matches. Please be careful not to enter too many competitions. This applies particularly to those who play both Association Croquet and Golf Croquet and also play in multiple league teams. Withdrawal always causes inconvenience to others. It leads to lack of parity between Blocks and it reduces the number of matches for other players who have paced themselves more sensibly.

If you need to play matches in the evenings, please play them before the light starts to be a problem towards the end of the season. It’s not fair or respectful to your opponent to try to squeeze a 26 point AC match or a best of three GC match into an hour and a half on a cold September evening with the light failing.

The handicap tracking sheet for AC handicaps has been very useful. An updated one will appear on the Notice Board for the beginning of the 2019 season. Please continue to help managers and the Handicap Committee by keeping it up to date as and when your handicap changes. The GC version has not been well used to date – please try to make this as accurate as the AC chart by filling it in yourself and encouraging others to do so. Handicap cards should be checked and signed by a member of the Handicap Committee as well, whenever an automatic change takes place.

Dates for the “on the day” competitions will be decided shortly when the other dates on the Calendar have been finalised. Entries for these will be invited about 3 weeks beforehand.

If there are enough entries to our qualifying competition, Nailsea will be able to send players to the Area Finals of the All England Competitions. The entry fee in each case is £7, as charged by CA. The details are:

All England Handicap GC TournamentNailsea matches to be played by mid-JuneArea Finals at Bath CC on Monday 12 August;National Final at Camerton and Peasedown CC 14/15 September

All England Handicap AC TournamentNailsea matches to be played by the end of JulyArea Finals at Camerton and Peasedown CC on 24/25 August;National Final at Hunstanton CC 7/8 September

Short Croquet 30th April

Short croquet is a faster version of the standard Croquet Association game played on a half-lawn for 14 points.There were 16 entrants to this annual club competitionWith a wide range of handicaps, the competition was run in 4 blocks so that everyone had a fair chance to reach the finals which will be played on Club Finals weekend at the end of this season.Semi-final players were selected from the players with the most wins from each block.Terry Young, winner of Block A played the winner of Block C, Brian Roynon, and Erica Malaiperuman, winner of Block B, played the winner of Block D, Kathy Wallace.In two entertaining matches, Erica won hers 14 points to Kathy’s 7. Brian was unable to gain a point in his game, as Terry dominated the game and finished in record time winning by the maximum 14 points.

The final between Erica and Terry will be difficult to predict but hotly contested for who becomes the club 2017 short croquet champion.

Golf Croquet Handicap Doubles – 23rd July 2016

Another great day of Golf Croquet for the club with a real mix of experience and handicaps which saw some surprise results right up until the very end.

But to begin at the beginning. The grey-cloud-covered sky towered over the white-clad-mallet-wielding players as the warmed up, warmup-ridden pairs tossed coins, agreed colours, set timers and sped away from corner 4 to the hoop-bespattered lawns; avoiding hills and hummocks, bugs and blobs, wires, wasps and wondrous wildlife.

Spared screams, screeches, sour words and scenarios by single-banking set-tos, the first round witnessed results as various as +3 to +1t. Shivering sweater-wearing scene two saw similar scales but sunny lunch-snackle-chatter synergized synchronisities resulting in all four round 3 games finishing within time.

Semi-finals were played out in front of an appreciative applause-acknowledging audience and congratulations to Terry and Libby; David Hogg and David Hunt, who will face each other over a best-of-three match at finals weekend.

And the winners are …

Block A

Brenda

Mary

Christine

Brian

David

David

Linda

Jim

Wins

Points

Pos’n

Brenda Midda

Mary Barnes

-3t

-2

-1t

0

4

Christine Haley

Brian McCausland

+3t

-3t

-3

1

3

David Hogg

David Hunt

+2

+3t

-2t

2

2

Linda Shaw

Jim Gregory

+1t

+3

+2t

3

1

Block B

Pam

Robin

Tony

Steve

Terry

Libby

James

Peter

Wins

Points

Pos’n

Pam Hendry

Robin Hendry

-1

+1

-2

1

0

3

Tony Willoughby

Steve Durston

+1

-3

-1

1

-2

4

Terry Young

Libby Howard-Blood

-1

+3

-3

1

+2

2

James Galpin

Peter Dyke

+2

+1

+3

3

1

Semi Finals

Winner of Block A

Linda Shaw / Jim Gregory

v

Runner up of Block B

Terry Young / Libby Howard-Blood

Winner of Block B

James Galpin / Peter Dyke

v

Runner up of Block A

David Hogg / David Hunt

Finals

Terry Young / LibbyH-Blood

v

David HHogg / David Hunt

15th May 2016 – Speed Croquet

As ever there was a grand early turn out to put out the lawns, get the timers ready, put the flag out, get the kettle on, check handicaps, sort out bisques, go through the briefing for players and timekeepers and even get in a few minutes warm up – not bad for a Sunday – and just after 10.00 the first round was in full swing.

A lot of laughter in the warm sunshine as players rushed across lawns (I do mean players, but balls were rushed too), fielded more or less successfully for each other and generally tried not to get in the way but to work as a team.

It was great to see some relative novices play alongside experienced players and to see some excellent partnership work and good spirit in the face of defeat and generosity in victory.

The timekeepers too deserve a special mention – Mike, Mary, Libby and assorted players provided excellent and concentrated support in a task that is more demanding than might be expected.

And thanks to Geoff for checking the clocks before the competition.

This is a light-hearted day’s competition but the basic laws and rules of croquet must not be neglected – we all learned a lot about the importance of keeping our mouths shut when we are itching to say something about a game; and referees were called upon several times as players got caught up in the maelstrom of their games.

After tea we enjoyed the semi finals between Kathy & Brigit v Pat & Neil, and Peter & James v Richard and Violet.

The partnership between Peter Dyke and James Galpin was outstanding in its teamwork and they gained a well-deserved place in the final where they will face Pat Long and Neil Devine.